Finished two nights ago, but have been too busy to post. I don't have enough time to read through the old posts, but I will later. In the meantime, I'll just post a few thoughts:

1). Dumbledore -- At first, I was really hoping that none of the bad past stuff was going to be true. The dude's my idol. But by the end of the book, I kind of liked him having that history. It makes him.....human. He had a tainted past, he changed his ways, but was still tempted at times. And if you look closely, all of his "bad" ideas, etc., were all based on love----his original anti-Muggle beliefs were related to what they had done to his sister. So, in a way, it's still true to the Dumbledore we know.

2). Snape --- Snape is essentially the second hero of the series. I found it incredibly touching/sad looking back and realizing that the letter he tore off wasn't even to him, and yet the "lots of love, Lily" meant so much to him.
Best part----Snape's last words being "Look at me." Harry has his mother's eyes. He wanted the last thing he sees to be Lily's eyes.

3). The Cover -- The US cover isn't a coliseum at all.....it's the Great Hall, with its sky-revealing ceiling. What everyone thought was the locket around Harry's neck is instead the moleskin pouch. And I'm guessing that they're reaching up for their wands when they're both flying up towards Harry, but before Voldemort is knocked back by his own spell.

4). The Elder Wand -- I'll write much more on this later. But I loved how Draco was the master of it, as, looking back, he had used Expelliarmus on Dumbledore immediately, well before Snape killed DD.

5). Voldemort -- At first I thought his death should've had much more fanfare, but now I LOVE how Tom Riddle died with no more than a mere thud. Fantastic.

Originally posted by Utoo
1). Dumbledore -- At first, I was really hoping that none of the bad past stuff was going to be true. The dude's my idol.

don't you love how JK Rowling is a master character developer? I was reading the beginning, the part were Rita Skeeter annoucned she was releasing a book, my insides were broiling with hate for her, and I kept defending Dumbledore deep in my heart. JK has made such definitive characteristics out of these people to get people to really react and feel this way, it's so awesome.
same with snape<3

On Snape: I'm not a fan of the movies and one of the reasons is the distortion of the books - Rickman is sort of a charmer, just as Emma Watson is probably too attractive and mainstream in the minds of audiences to represent Hermione. Snape not bad until the 5th movie? I was writing out my response to Teta and I’ve actually decided to submit it as an essay to Leaky’s Scribbulus project. Here’s what I guess is my first draft (comments appreciated).

In the books, Snape was pretty damn biased, awful, and torturous towards Harry from day one. It is telling that when the Occlumency lessons ended and he was ignoring Harry, Harry tells us this made him more bearable. In HBP, Snape resumes his unfair and condescending attitude towards Harry, until the sectumsempra incident, when Harry felt Snape’s wrath anew. We can imagine, knowing about George's ear, that Snape was bitter and angry not just because Harry was using his Potions book, but that his specialty curse was being used by this loathable reminder that Lily chose James over him. After Harry cursed Draco, Snape delighted in giving Harry detention that made Harry miss Quiddich, an act that shows Snape’s penchant for unfair play as it improved Slytherin’s chances in the cup race. Snape’s detentions rubbed Harry's face in his father and Sirius's misdeeds, which Snape must have delighted in both because this tainted the characters of Harry's two parental-saint figures and each mention of their names made Harry feel the pain of their deaths. Sadly for Snape, Harry's detentions also led to the scene where he enters the portrait hole after the missed Quiddich match and finally gets together with Ginny. I love the irony there; Snape’s hate allows Harry to finally experience Ginny’s love.

And speaking of irony, just as Snape resented Harry as a reminder of James, did he catch on to the fact that his Doe Patronus was ultimately inspired by Lily’s love for James? James was a stag Animagus, and probably his Patronus was a stag too; either way, we can surmise that Lily’s Patronus was a doe because James’s was a stag. I am not being sexist here and saying that the woman’s representation was caused by the man she was in love with. We know that James turned into a stag at Hogwarts long before they would have been taught Patronuses, which are NEWT level DADA magic, and long before he finally won Lily’s heart in their seventh year. Whether Lily’s Patronus turned into a doe when she fell in love with James or it was always a doe because they were always meant to be, I do not know.

Anyway. Snape is (as Saracene said) genuinely nasty. There is a degree of truth to the argument that he had to create these memories and this real hate to help him fool Voldemort, but for the most part he just plain tortured Harry unnecessarily because Harry reminded him that he’d “lost” Lily to James, which isn’t even the truth. While he's always been a creepy spying jerk, Lily was a nice enough person to everyone in her life, especially when she was young, and so befriended him. She was the only friend he ever had. They were friends in part because Lily was just so sickly sweet (which is actually quite a flaw: although the story is from Harry's point of view, and we know boys worship their mothers, Lily came through still looking pretty damn perfect and therefore, as a character, flat). And they were bonded also because Lily, as a Muggle-born, was so excited to be introduced to the magical world and Snape was the bearer of this good news. However, we see in “Snape’s worst memory” that it was Snape himself who lost Lily when he called her a Mudblood and thus let it show that his nasty side could reach even her.

I don't know what kind of message JKR wanted to send when she revealed Snape’s motivations – that acts of kindness to gits who need a good shampooing (RIP Fred) can come back to protect our children some day? That desperate, lonely, stalkerish love can make someone redeemable and heroic? I hope these were not her intended messages; attributing these morals to the woman who brought us our newly (or is it always?) complex Dumbledore and created this magical world do Jo a great disservice. In the essay “Draconian Prince, Lame Snape,” published before Deathly Hallows, we are told that Snape might represent an added layer of moral complexity in the books as someone who tries to do a good thing (defeating Voldemort) in the wrong ways (killing Dumbledore without the death pact), and because of his evil ways is doomed to fail while Harry’s good methods prevail. I have revised this theory, knowing the events of Deathly Hallows.

I hope Jo was indeed showing us somebody who wanted to do something good, but for a faulty or wrong reason. I can’t believe Snape's love was supposed to be read as good and heroic. I find it pathetic and sad; he hadn’t known kindness from anyone but Lily, and that's a pretty weak foundation for real, true love. So Snape remained in love with Lily, but it was stalkerish, obsessive, unrequited love and not some romantic, heroic, fairy tale-esque true love. Snape’s love was one-way, for personal reasons, and thus “taking” and selfish, rather than giving and beautiful as real love is and as Harry’s sacrifice is. (This taking vs. giving analysis belongs to the author of another Leaky essay, this one in the Harry Potter Seven project I believe, though I can’t find it now). In the end, Snape was motivated by the selfish desire to delude himself into thinking he was honoring Lily’s memory, making up for telling Voldemort the prophecy that resulted in her death, finally repenting for that moment years ago when he called her a Mudblood. Snape may have died heroically, but he was not a hero in character.

I find support for my interpretation in the midst of the final scenes, in Snape’s role in bringing down Voldemort and saving Harry. The pointlessness of Snape’s death indicates how much value JKR wished to place on Snape’s character and motivations. These motivations based upon a false foundation, and he died because Voldemort’s reasoning about the Elder Wand’s ownership was based upon a false foundation. In Snape’s death, as in his life, he helped Harry without actually wanting to help Harry (he only ever wanted to help Lily), becoming the false security blanket that allowed the Avada Kedavra curse to recoil so that Voldemort killed himself. It is a cloud of falseness and poor interpretations of reality that surrounds Snape’s death, and his life as well.

Teta, I cannot believe you skipped to the end. That is very strange indeed. I have also never seen, in pages of online reactions to the book, anyone interpret Rita Skeeter's slandar as anything more than that (well, would it technically be libel?) and never anyone read it into the scene at King's Cross. Uh....I don't really know how to react beyond to say, Rita Skeeter is full of lies and King's Cross was a confusing scene but not because it implied sexual impropriety.

Other than confidence that Harry's nakedness and warm clother were not an indication of sexual abuse, I am a bit undecided on the King's Cross scene. Maybe we're not supposed to, after all, as Dumbledore says to Harry, does it matter if it's real? But I don't want Christian iconography of going towards heaven and some half point where Harry is tied to the magical world and talks to heavenly Dumbledore-god about Voldemort-satan and Nagini-serpent pushing into the books and Harry being Jesus ressurected. It's not CS Lewis; Jo might have been influenced by that imagery but she has also been influenced by countless myths (especially with character names) and there's pages written on how the books reflect the mythical stages of alchemy - I consider this just another myth that has influenced the books, not a message in and of itself, so it can't explain the scene for me. Plus, though he intended to sacrifice himself for the good of the world, Harry was not resurrected by a deity or religion, but by Voldemort's foolishness, the fact that a) Voldemort had unintentionally made Harry a Horcrux and then had destroyed that part of his soul and b) Voldemort had unintentionally given Harry a lifeline by taking some of his blood and his mother's protection (which apparently in Voldemort didn't wear out when Harry turned 17...another kind of catch in the plot...I try not to think about that one too closely, as even DD wasn't confident on it, but it is a little convenient...)

I want to know by what magical mechanism was Dumbledore able to talk to the living, if he was indeed dead (he was) and had forsaken a chance to come back as a ghost (he had). So if DD had invaded Harry's head, but was really talking to him, how did he pull this Obi Wan moment off (and why did JKR make it sooooo reminiscent of Obi Wan)? We see several magical never-evers in book 7 that Jo had previously implied were impossible: flying without the aid of magical objects, like broomsticks, which we can explain as Voldemort being one of the most powerful wizards in history and discovering some (likely dark) means by which to fly, and also, coming back to life in a way, if that is indeed what DD was doing in those moments, reaching from the land of the dead to Harry, or Harry who was still able to inhabit the living world, without the stone (that was gone already) and without being a ghost, which Nick has told us is a terrible choice to be stuck forever in the land of the living; while others go on to the land of the dead unable to return.

Alternatively, we can interpret that Harry really was dead, or part way there but still tied to earth, but then, why was it only DD who he talked to? If he thought Voldemort had killed him, even though he thought DD had manipulated it all, would it really be DD whom he desired to see first upon death, and not his parents and Sirius?

I know that scene was necessary to explain it all, and to clear up Dumbledore, but it's under my skin. I haven't yet finished my reread, so maybe it will make more sense when I'm not overtired and frantic that Harry can't possibly be dead, but I'm curious how others interpreted that scene.

I think the thing on the ground is the bit of Voldemort's soul that Voldemort's killing curse has just killed; detached from Harry. It's described as similar to Voldemort before his return in book 4, and that Harry is concerned about this bit of soul but Dumbledore says he can do nothing for it (it is already dead, and/or it is so evil nothing can be done for it) is another sign of how good Harry is.

As for Unforgivable Curses, I think we saw that several on the good side had to use them, and that is the sacrifice you must make in war. Even a liberal like myself can admit as much; if the other side has guns and they are truly evil, you better have guns and be willing to use them too or you have much less of a chance at success. We also saw Death Eaters killed by other means that weren't unforgivable curses, such as whatever Molly sent at Bellatrix, or stunning spells at people on broomsticks 1000s of feet in the air (but Harry has morals; he won't do this to Stan who he knows to be Imperiused).

The wand has confused most on Leaky threads I've read, and is also on my list of magical theory questions to ask JKR - it obviously can't work at a simple Expelliarmus spell, but there has to be some grander sense in which the next owner has defeated the previous owner, right? Except that DD pretty much allowed Draco to do what he did, and how could Harry master the Elder wand by disarming Draco who was using a different wand? Very confusing, and it shakes my faith in JKR's plotting abilities and ability to imagine this complete magical world to think it is a mistake, but it may jsut be that - she planned this sequence 17 years ago, when she wasn't the author she is today (see below), and she'd already published the scene in HBP when Draco disarms DD - so was she simply cornered into making the Wand that mysterious? If its magical properties are supposed to be finicky and unkown, if it is supposed to have some element of choice as to its owner (as we are told of wands) why would it choose Draco over Snape? Snape may have been despicable, but was clearly a powerful wizard and showed great fortitude in his spy work, which the wand may seek; whereas Draco was both only a decent underage wizard and fairly spineless and cowardly. One of the open questions that made an enjoyable book seem unsatisfying to me in some ways.

A few more items for discussion:

I have to applaud how brilliant Hermione was in the story, saving their asses a thousand times over from the bag with everything they'd need to the protective charms to intuition when the Apparated away from Ron and she knew, in the heat of a very tense moment, that he could find them. She was awesome.

Ron. What does everyone make of his desertion? I was very bothered by it while I was reading the part without him, as we are supposed to be from Harry's point of view. (I also felt the desperation of their endless, ever-moving search, excellent writing there). When we hear his story and learn he immediately wanted to return, it made perfect sense. After all, he and Harry have rarely fought, and it was bound to happen, especially with tensions over girls and Ron's jealousy at being overshadowed that has been a theme since they first met. So it makes sense even that Dumbledore would know to give Ron the Deluminator, but the whole thing adds another question to my list of questions for JKR, this one in the category of "the way the magical world works" (the other categories are "writing decisions" such as the repreive and title changes she's alluded to, and "character backstory and futures"). How the hell does the Deluminator work? Is it a honing beacon to what you most desire, which for Ron would be Hermione and/or to return to help his friends? That'd be pretty damn cool, but I'd like to know for sure.

Dumbledore. I can't wait to go back and reread the series knowing what we know now, I think the complexity and boyhood mistakes make him much more real, and I think his strength at resisting things he knew would corrupt him (the Hallows, the position of Minister) is as admirable to me as Harry's pure goodness is to him. Big thumbs up for that, and the journey of emotions Harry had to feel towards him, which recalled his anger in book 5 that ended up to be caused by Dumbledore’s protectiveness AND his strategic needs – more foreshadowing, anyone?

Jo's writing has gotten much better, though I do have a few problems with the pacing of book 7 - but there has always been a great climax at the end, I guess. Anyway, I mostly wanted to acknowledge how funny she's become. I mean, Fred and George have always been funny, and there have been other humorous scenes and nicknames and incidents, but book 6 and book 7 are truely on another level, they rise above the rest and have me roaring with laughter. I laugh to myself walking down the street just reliving the funniest moments of these books, and the bits that weren't so much moments but ongoing humor. Ron's birthday gift to Harry and the antics with complements that follow - all the while made funnier because Ron is worried about Harry and Ginny and also Harry as competition for Hermione!! Silly, silly Ron, giving the competition your playbook. Actually the whole time at the Burrow is hilarious, from Hermione's mouthing off to Scrimgeour to Harry and Krum ("big jealous boyfriend" - "what's the point of being an international quiddich player if all the pretty girls are taken" hahhaha). The Potterwatch scene (I wish there'd been another one, at Bill's or something) which was prolonged hilarity equivalent to Luna's Quiddich match in book 6. Ron confunding the driving examiner, and his exchange with Hermione that shows how they still affectionately bicker, 19 years later. Great entertainment is funny while it is full of drama, action, suspense, fear, morality lessons, etc. (This is one of the reasons the first two seasons of Grey's Anatomy were better than the third...but I digress). Jo's humor is fabulous, I have to give a nod to it.

Remus and Tonks deserved a better death scene (though I kind of knew Remus would bite it, and probably both of them, when Harry became godfather). I took the brevity of treatment his death received to be another message about the nature of war. I was kind of pissed that while little Teddy got his follow up, George/Fred didn't. (Another death foreshadowed - George lost an ear and I KNEW it would be Fred who died.) I agree that Tonks and Lupin were the 2 extra deaths - she didn't originally intend them, but decided it would be a brilliantly tragic parallel to make Harry godfather to another boy orphaned by Voldemort.

The reprieve. My theories are either Hagrid (because it was clear he was going to die, and then maybe she got to writing that scene where the DEs bring Harry's body back and thought, "hey, I love Hagrid and it would be beautiful to have him carry Harry, plus he's just slow enough not to immediately notice when Harry disappears," or Molly Weasley, because under my original theory she would die to protect either Harry or one of her kids, so in the book, maybe she was supposed to die to protect Ginny, and the death of his surrogate mother would make Harry reveal himself, rather than Voldemort's wrath towards her for killing Bellatrix (who, by the way, seemed to have something sexual for Voldemort...sick, sick lady). Who do you guys think got the reprieve? (I wrote this yesterday guys...I know we have the answer now!)

A continuity question on Hagrid that has really been bothering me, somebody, I am DESPERATE for a response on this:
In the 7 Harrys chapter, Hagrid dives off the motorbike onto an attacking death eater. Voldemort then comes up to Harry, whose wand strangely points at him and breaks Lucius's wand. We hear Voldemort asking for another wand; Harry pushes the dragon fire button and accelerates forward (we know there was enough acceleration to previously break the sidecar off); just as Voldemort catches him Harry enters the protective bubble around the Tonks house and crashes into their lake. Note that he accellerated forward into the bubble from the place where Hagrid fell and he last saw Voldemort. Then, Hagrid is suddenly on the ground (without the death eater?) within the bubble, appearing so wounded that upon waking up Harry fears he has died. How on earth did the great Hagrid movement happen??? I can't imagine such a big continuity error would be missed, so I have to assume something is wrong with my reading comprehension. Anyone have an explanation?? One that doesn't involve Harry's comically desperate "Accio Hagrid" summons propelling the giant away from Harry?

Confirmation on poor Lupin and Tonks. And wow, Mr. Weasley...another Harry father figure...there wasn't even a hint of his death in the final version!
She also gave more info and epilogue type stuff on another interview, I'm waiting for leaky to post video!!

Also, Unico, great post on the humanity of Harry Potter!! The love thing - that's why the Malfoys really touched me in the end, their love for Draco overcame their evilness, too.

Teta, my office is literally on the corner where the explosion took place; no exagerating. I am working in a Dunkin Donuts (they are wireless in NYC, such a strange concept for a Bostonian like myself!).

Gibson Girl, I think in Teta's defense he was lamenting the fact that for several pages this thread turned into an argument with Justin over YouTube videos and spoilers. I certainly have enjoyed everyone's commentary, outside of that bit in the thread.

Varitek, that's exactly what I was trying to say....to everyone who thought I was an "arrogant toerag", well, I didn't mean to be, but if that's the way it came across, I'm sorry. I just think that 50 yrs from now, people will be having the same debates as they do about LOTR/Tolkien as to whether the Potter series qualifies as " great literature." With each re-read I am more convinced that it is. She may have grown late into the game of good "writing" (technique) but in this case I make an exception for judging by style. If people are concerned that by placing this series--and her--in the future "canon" this would be an alarming example of the general "dumbing down" of mass culture, well, that argument was lost long ago. It's like comparing the Beatles and opera....

I haven't got far enough to reply to all the FANTASTIC stuff on here, really have to finish....Varitek, I know, I usually don't read the 2nd half of books first either but I got home at 3 AM Saturday and that's how it worked out, I flipped through the chapter titles and bingo, knowing how slow I read this (I'm keeping my eyes open for the deep stuff) I had to have certain questions answered, I could bear to be spoiled in some things if others weren't.

Very convincing argument about Snape, I suppose but if you put that up on Leaky be prepared for rebuttals steeper than anything I could dream up....when I say that Snape is one of my favorite 3 characters that's not b/c I have this picture of a redeemed hero.Far from it. I regard him as someone who, as I said in that long-winded post (I went back and read it again and *cringe* over-analyized a bit too much but I had literally just read that stuff and was crying!) "made all the wrong choices" and yes, he deserved to suffer. People are asking what IMO are some silly questions, such as, "Why didn't his portrait go up in the office?" Because he had a serious criminal record as a Death Eater, and I'm guessing that like for any job they do background checks at Hogwarts....Phineus Nigellus may have been a bigoted Slytherin prat but he never openly used Dark Magic....and "What did Lily see in James?" Well, who would you choose, the racist creep on campus or the good-looking, handsome jock? Snape made the choice a lot easier.

Yes, I saw the ist half of the Today interview this morning and Jo's answer to the question about Snape. I agree, he would have done it for no one else but her, and he certainly is no role model. And he he is not a hero in the traditional sense. But he was in the process of redeeming himself, and I have to clarify that when I was crying my fool head off writing about the connection between Chapters 19 with 33 and 34 I was reacting to Jo's literary technique of suggesting the person who could have been. Jo is very clear that in her mind, he is not redeemed: his portrait does not go up, his Potions knowledge is lost (the good and the bad), and his ghost certainly does not appear in the forest. Merlin forbid! But she wants us to know what Snape destroyed, that until the end he had a little kernel of his old self still there, and it could have been great. If she had not meant to show this, or suggest this, to plant the picture so vividly in our minds, then she would not have set all that up symbolically as she did. Remember I said, "IF you choose to interpret things this way." Harry certainly did, so Jo herself is of two minds. Whether or not we agree with Harry is something she leaves open to debate. Some will see that he was good by the end and follow my argument through. Others (like you, LOL) will discount it. I fall in the middle---I see it as Jo's way of suggesting what could have been, and it's this, the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem, that I cry over. It's Tolkien's "hope without guaruntees." I guess maybe Snape and Lily are meant to be Rosearch blots (Sp, I know ) and people will probably be debating this for a long time to come.

Regarding the Patronus--you think that the only reason Snape had Lily's doe Patronus is b/c of his all consuming, unhealthy obsession. I happen to think that no "good" (ie form of a beautiful animal) Patronus can come from a negative emotion. Remember a Patronus is generated by a person's most powerful happy memory. So say, if an ax murderer cast a Patronus, if his happiest memory was the murder he committed/i.e. a revenge he took upon somebody, he'd be able to get, say, a sable antelope? I think that the type of Patronus is pre-determined by the nature of the memory that generates it. If Snape's "love" is warped and unwholsome, there's no way he would have her Patronus. He'd have a lizard or a scorpion or something. I can't imagine a Death Eater with, say, a rabbit Patronus, like Luna's.....I know this is getting REALLY TECHNICAL but I just have this gut feeling that with such a powerful spell, there'd be rules and laws. I wish I could ask Jo this! If Snape's "obsession" began at Hogwarts than I see a totally different Patronus. But it began in his childhood, remained the only good thing in his otherwise awful life, and anyway, I happen to think that just as people's Patronuses chage when thet fall in love, they'd change when a person changes for the worse. Snape began with and until the day he dies had the same one. So whatever he became, sorry, I think that in this regard, he never changed....

For me, everyone in the book was tarnished. Even Lily. You suggest that Snape's love for her isn't pure, but more sinister, obsessive, stalkerish. Maybe it became that way at Hogwarts but I refuse to beleive that he "stalked" her at age 10! I am a teacher's aide and I happen to work with middle schoolers..though I've worked K-6....I've dealth with some problem kids, kids with special needs, behavior problems, etc, a few from broken homes, and I've seen allkinds of strangestuff, but nothing yet of a 9 or 10 yr old "stalking" a girl in the traditional sense. Teasing, bullying, all kinds of behavior, but nothing like what you're suggesting. I've gone back to the chapter and I think Jo again wrote this so that successive readings have you interpreting it different ways. Certainly he had dreams of grandeur at age 10 but this "I will rule the world someday and you will be at my side" thing did not exit in any other way than as a childish dream. It took contact with others to ripen it into something diseased. You seem to think he had the seed of evil all along. I don't think it sprouted until Hogwarts....

I guess we could argue about this until the cows come home....

And while we're on the subject of stalking, (damn you, Varitek! I happen to be in the Chapter "Kreacher's Tale" and I've just gone back and re-read pg 181 and Harry's reading Lily's letter takes on a whole new meaning.....you've polluted it...) I'm sorry, but Lily creeped me out even more than Snape. Pps. 663-664: "The playground was deserted, apart from themselves and, though they did not know it, Snape. Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snape lurked....Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. *The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster.* " Petunia asks how she does it and then Snape pops out of the bush and tells her. That's how they first meet and if you can't pick up on the imagery here....what can I say but !!!!!He is RIGHT THERE!.if Snape already has a "stalkerish" air about him, then Lily is clearly receptive. And no, it isn't a Fruedian stereotype of the budding flower waiting for whatever bee is nearby, waiting to be fertilized (though Snape does become her first magical "mentor.") and Snape just happening to be there, she could have had this vivid imagery at Hogwarts in a scene with James in it too. Jo set it up that way for a reason..so that the attraction would remian ambiguous and debatable. The scene is a suggestion of what would come...or what would later might have come to be. Later on Snape tells her point-blank about James and his jealously spills out, "the intensity of his gaze made her blush." Does she brush him off with a "Sev, you need to get your life together and straighten your priorites, I think we need to take a break from speaking for a while" or something like that, which would be her polite but firm way of telling him, once and for all, that no, she does not want to be more than friends? No, LIly just tells him about his Death Eater friends. Does anyone else find this creepy? Personally speaking as someone who has brushed off a couple of weird "stalker" types in high school, I would have "snapped" long before a racial slur. Just the hair would have creeped me out, no matter how much I knew him from home, I mean, we drift on, don't we? When she says "I've made excuses for you for years", can she only be talking about her continuing to talk to him? This scene sounds like it took place in 5th yr or later. I know she was never openly attracted to him but the way this is written is just too vague...so maybe there really is some weird "Beauty and the Beast"--or should I say, anti-BATB--s*** going on. At the "I will come down to have dinner with you every night at 7 and ask you a question" stage anyway.

Anyway, I really do have to finish the book, so i'll be back asap...cheers everyone.....

You all raise some very interesting and deep topics. You've thought of so much I didn't even notice, but you're right!

I hope the movies will fill in blanks that bother fans, like what happened to Tonks and Lupin? If she was going to kill them off, it could have at least been in a blaze of glory, and one we see, not just get bodies dumped on us later.

I have to say that the final battle of Hogwarts was fantastic, and very well done. Very exciting and emotional. I'm impressed and pleased with the results. Good job JK.

Butterscotch....see my above post, I suggested a way David Thewlis could play in film 7....comic relief and then tragedy.

Personally I think it's better that we see Tonks and Lupin killed "offstage" so to speak...just like Bambi's mother is killed "off camera." To this dying day, whenever I watch Bambi and the father saying "Your mother can't be with you anymore", what gets me shivering in that scene is the falling white snow, and I imagine her body being carved up by the hunters, and the pool of her bright red blood sparkling in the white snow....*SHUDDER*.

In the same way it is a better technique, I think, to leave the manner of their deaths open. Either it is merciful (a simple AK, which is what probably happened, as there was no mark upon them), but not to know who killed them is sinster too. Somehow the dehumanizing of their deaths makes Voldemort all the more terrible. I don't doubt they went out in a blze of glory, but to me, describing their last duels would have lessened the impact of thier deaths..it would have been just another duel in a big battle....this will only grow more powerful with time.

Originally posted by Varitek On Snape: I'm not a fan of the movies and one of the reasons is the distortion of the books - Rickman is sort of a charmer, just as Emma Watson is probably too attractive and mainstream in the minds of audiences to represent Hermione. Snape not bad until the 5th movie? I was writing out my response to Teta and I’ve actually decided to submit it as an essay to Leaky’s Scribbulus project. Here’s what I guess is my first draft (comments appreciated).

In the books, Snape was pretty damn biased, awful, and torturous towards Harry from day one. It is telling that when the Occlumency lessons ended and he was ignoring Harry, Harry tells us this made him more bearable. In HBP, Snape resumes his unfair and condescending attitude towards Harry, until the sectumsempra incident, when Harry felt Snape’s wrath anew. We can imagine, knowing about George's ear, that Snape was bitter and angry not just because Harry was using his Potions book, but that his specialty curse was being used by this loathable reminder that Lily chose James over him. After Harry cursed Draco, Snape delighted in giving Harry detention that made Harry miss Quiddich, an act that shows Snape’s penchant for unfair play as it improved Slytherin’s chances in the cup race. Snape’s detentions rubbed Harry's face in his father and Sirius's misdeeds, which Snape must have delighted in both because this tainted the characters of Harry's two parental-saint figures and each mention of their names made Harry feel the pain of their deaths. Sadly for Snape, Harry's detentions also led to the scene where he enters the portrait hole after the missed Quiddich match and finally gets together with Ginny. I love the irony there; Snape’s hate allows Harry to finally experience Ginny’s love.

And speaking of irony, just as Snape resented Harry as a reminder of James, did he catch on to the fact that his Doe Patronus was ultimately inspired by Lily’s love for James? James was a stag Animagus, and probably his Patronus was a stag too; either way, we can surmise that Lily’s Patronus was a doe because James’s was a stag. I am not being sexist here and saying that the woman’s representation was caused by the man she was in love with. We know that James turned into a stag at Hogwarts long before they would have been taught Patronuses, which are NEWT level DADA magic, and long before he finally won Lily’s heart in their seventh year. Whether Lily’s Patronus turned into a doe when she fell in love with James or it was always a doe because they were always meant to be, I do not know.

Anyway. Snape is (as Saracene said) genuinely nasty. There is a degree of truth to the argument that he had to create these memories and this real hate to help him fool Voldemort, but for the most part he just plain tortured Harry unnecessarily because Harry reminded him that he’d “lost” Lily to James, which isn’t even the truth. While he's always been a creepy spying jerk, Lily was a nice enough person to everyone in her life, especially when she was young, and so befriended him. She was the only friend he ever had. They were friends in part because Lily was just so sickly sweet (which is actually quite a flaw: although the story is from Harry's point of view, and we know boys worship their mothers, Lily came through still looking pretty damn perfect and therefore, as a character, flat). And they were bonded also because Lily, as a Muggle-born, was so excited to be introduced to the magical world and Snape was the bearer of this good news. However, we see in “Snape’s worst memory” that it was Snape himself who lost Lily when he called her a Mudblood and thus let it show that his nasty side could reach even her.

I don't know what kind of message JKR wanted to send when she revealed Snape’s motivations – that acts of kindness to gits who need a good shampooing (RIP Fred) can come back to protect our children some day? That desperate, lonely, stalkerish love can make someone redeemable and heroic? I hope these were not her intended messages; attributing these morals to the woman who brought us our newly (or is it always?) complex Dumbledore and created this magical world do Jo a great disservice. In the essay “Draconian Prince, Lame Snape,” published before Deathly Hallows, we are told that Snape might represent an added layer of moral complexity in the books as someone who tries to do a good thing (defeating Voldemort) in the wrong ways (killing Dumbledore without the death pact), and because of his evil ways is doomed to fail while Harry’s good methods prevail. I have revised this theory, knowing the events of Deathly Hallows.

I hope Jo was indeed showing us somebody who wanted to do something good, but for a faulty or wrong reason. I can’t believe Snape's love was supposed to be read as good and heroic. I find it pathetic and sad; he hadn’t known kindness from anyone but Lily, and that's a pretty weak foundation for real, true love. So Snape remained in love with Lily, but it was stalkerish, obsessive, unrequited love and not some romantic, heroic, fairy tale-esque true love. Snape’s love was one-way, for personal reasons, and thus “taking” and selfish, rather than giving and beautiful as real love is and as Harry’s sacrifice is. (This taking vs. giving analysis belongs to the author of another Leaky essay, this one in the Harry Potter Seven project I believe, though I can’t find it now). In the end, Snape was motivated by the selfish desire to delude himself into thinking he was honoring Lily’s memory, making up for telling Voldemort the prophecy that resulted in her death, finally repenting for that moment years ago when he called her a Mudblood. Snape may have died heroically, but he was not a hero in character.

I find support for my interpretation in the midst of the final scenes, in Snape’s role in bringing down Voldemort and saving Harry. The pointlessness of Snape’s death indicates how much value JKR wished to place on Snape’s character and motivations. These motivations based upon a false foundation, and he died because Voldemort’s reasoning about the Elder Wand’s ownership was based upon a false foundation. In Snape’s death, as in his life, he helped Harry without actually wanting to help Harry (he only ever wanted to help Lily), becoming the false security blanket that allowed the Avada Kedavra curse to recoil so that Voldemort killed himself. It is a cloud of falseness and poor interpretations of reality that surrounds Snape’s death, and his life as well.